Authentic Orange

Submitted by Megan Marchand

Authenticity to me means not being fake, but being true to one self as well as others when it comes actions upon one’s morals and beliefs.

Now, I haven’t always been a Beaver Believer. In fact, up until my senior year of high school, I was always a Duck fan. It wasn’t until I received a scholarship that would pay for my tuition at any university in the state of Oregon that found myself considering becoming a Beaver. Ever since I was a little kid I always wanted to become a high school teacher, I wanted to teach Agriculture to younger generations and education them on some of the most important subjects that pertain to continuing life on this earth. I just never knew how. It wasn’t until I was awarded the Ford Family Foundation scholarship that this dream of mine was put into perspective.

All of a sudden the stats, sports or games didn’t matter. I focused on the academics of schools all around Oregon and I found that Oregon State was known for its College of Agriculture as well as excelled academically in the eyes of the state. That’s when I applied and a few months later I was accepted. I started attending OSU in the Fall of 2013 and grew to love the community as well as the beautiful campus. Everyone here is so welcoming and accepting they became people too difficult to not like. They grew on me.

Today, I would consider myself authentically Orange. There is not school I rather attend or place I rather be than with my fellow classmates and peers here at this university. We may not be super great at football, but we have great sportsmanship.

This is a guide to becoming AUTHENTICALLY Orange for all those CURRENT Duck fans!

• Visit and fall in love with our campus!
• It’s not too big, but it’s not too small either
• See how welcoming, open minded and accepting our community is
• Apply and enroll at Oregon State University. You can visit the Admission’s Office page at http://oregonstate.edu/admissions/ to get more information.
• Buy a bunch of Beaver gear
• Admire how good you look in orange and black! What’s up good lookin’?
• Take classes that you’re interested in and contact your professors
• Realize how much the instructors on this campus care about the success of each and every one of their students.
• Sit in the student’s section at any one of our sporting events and feel the energy of our fan base
• Play intermural sports through Dixon Rec
• Get involved in Greek Life whether you join the community or you just participate in their philanthropies
• Live fully and authentically and enjoy every moment at this beautiful school

Alright, so there are a few things I’ve learned from my Philosophy class this past term. One of the things I’ve learned is how to live in the moment. I’ve learned that reality is ontologically ambiguous and that facticity and transcendence both play an important part in living day-to-day. This class has taught me to question everything! I mean everything. Is freedom actually free? What does it mean to be alive? What does it take to become “nothing”? Is there an afterlife? Is there a god? Most importantly though, this past term I’ve learned the importance of being true to myself. The importance of authenticity. Without being authentic I can’t successfully live with meaning. We are all in an existential situation where we are striving for eternal and infinite meaning. There are three spheres to existence: Aesthetic, Ethical and Religious.

People live that live in the Aesthetic sphere are thrill seekers. They seek to satisfy their desires immediately. In the Ethical sphere people constantly debate if situations and choices are good or bad. These people live with believing they have a universal moral duty to make responsible decisions that align with their idea of right. Lastly, in the Religious sphere these people live in Christian faith. They find meaning in both their church and their relationship with God.

Some people live in all three of these spheres actively. Some only one or two. However, typically one resonates most with them. Which do you live in?

Submitted by Nathan Harlan,

Being orange authentically is a goal for most of us attending Oregon State. This goal however means different things to different people, which is obvious or it wouldn’t be authenticity. This can present a special kind of struggle because we have to define authenticity for ourselves. I think that Kierkegaard does the best job at explaining this for me so I will look to his work to find an answer. Kierkegaard defined this as becoming aware of ones true self, there are two main parts that encompass what it means to be human for Kierkegaard, the finite and the infinite. The finite is the earthly, the body that is temporal. While the infinite is the spiritual, the eternal, it is forever. Kierkegaard was a Christian man who believed in life after this one, unlike some other philosophers, so to him it was obvious that the eternal plays a part in becoming authentic. Although having finite and infinite realities of life for every person, not everyone acknowledges both of them. Kierkegaard calls this despair, and he names three types of this “despair”(Lecture 4/21/15). The first is not to be conscious of having self, although he acknowledges that this is not truly despair because ignorance is bliss, this means that the individual is not aware of the struggle between the finite and the infinite. That is the worst kind. The second is not to will to be one’s self this is to be aware of the tension but to deny either the finite or the infinite, to deny either would be inauthentic. the third and final despair is to will to be one’s self, this is the acceptance of both the finite and the infinite, but it is to try and make the finite infinite by works done in this world. These are all ways to be inauthentic, but we have not yet defined what it means to be authentic. To be true to one’s self sounds good but we want to go deeper so we can aim to do it. After this point the definition of authenticity is different for everyone. Kierkegaard had three spheres of existence that authenticity can be partially found in the aesthetic sphere, the ethical sphere, or the religious sphere(Lecture 4/23/15 slides 1-11). The aesthetic sphere is living for self and seeking pleasure and adventure for self. The ethical sphere is doing what is “right” this could mean by the law or even by a religion if that is the law you follow. The religious sphere is different than the ethical sphere and can fit with it but also override it. To me, being authentic is trying to live in the religious sphere, because I am Christian and I choose to live that way, although many times I do not live up to that expectation of myself a lot of the time, but that is expected and forgiven in my religion. Religion is maybe not the best word for it though, because as Kierkegaard said, the religious sphere is a personal passionate relationship with the living God of the universe(Lecture 4/23/15 slides 12-15), to me it is not adequate to call it religion. Maintaining that relationship by choice of my own is what it means for me to be authentic.

Now that I have my definition of authenticity for me laid out and clear, I can look at how I plan on going about becoming authentic. There are some obstacles that I have already ran into and that I will continue to face while trying to authentically be orange and Christian. The challenges I face are similar to the ones that anyone trying to be authentic, no matter what that means,  would face. That obstacle is the temptation to conform to ” The Herd”. This herd instinct for Nietzsche, is the very thing that I want to towards being! Nietzsche says that Religion and morality creates a herd mentality of all of use thinking the same way, he thinks this because he did not believe in a god or in absolute truth(Nietzsche, The Gay Science, pg. 130). I believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth, and that it comes from God. I want to work towards living out that truth in my own authentic way and if Nietzsche would call that the herd mentality then I would love to join the herd!  However, to me, the herd mentality to avoid is the mentality in the world. The partying and drinking that is basically expected from college students is the mentality of the crowed that Kierkegaard speaks of as untruth(Kierkegaard, The crowed is untruth, link 5/5/15). It is tempting to conform to fit in and have a good time, but this would not be authentic for me because I would be partying to hang out with others, to fit in, to join “The crowed” as I would define it.

This struggle to be authentic will continue for the rest of my life and the best way to deal with it will be to take it day by day and be true to the person I choose to be. After doing that, what more is there to do?